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On Saturday 15 October, seven students from St Monica’s competed in the 2016 Tournament of Minds (TOM) Australia Pacific Finals on the Gold Coast. TOM is a creative problem solving state and national competition that helps promote and celebrate flexible, creative thinking processes. St Monica’s students represented South Australia in the Primary Social Science section having won the State championship in September. The school was thrilled that another Catholic School, St Columba’s in Yorketown received Honours in the Language Literature category.
In The Australian Pacific Finals, students were ‘locked up’ in a room for three hours, provided with a complex social Issue to solve and needed to write a creative solution as a script, use recycled material to make costumes and props, then learn their parts.
Presentations were performed in front of three judges and all other teams from the other New Zealand, Thailand and other states and territories.
The ‘problem’ involved a scenario in which a community was controlled by a harmonic ‘pulse’ that helped the society to be calm, predictable and manageable. However one individual decides to challenge this ‘norm’ and stop the pulse. Teams had to explain why the pulse existed, its benefits and disadvantages, who stopped the pulse, why and consequences when suddenly the ‘order’ evaporates.
Team facilitator, Greg Parker was very impressed with the creativity and spontaneity of the solution. Greg attributes their success to the many years of creative thinking experiences at the school and the focus on Australian Curriculum General Capabilities as core to learning.
St Monica’s school was awarded second place ‘Honours.’ This is the schools 3rd Australian Pacific award and 6th State Winner award over the past 11 years. The team had a memorable time including opportunities to enjoy Seaworld and the Gold Coast. They would also like to thank the TOM organising committee and all other volunteers who give these children wonderful opportunities to display and celebrate their creativity and problem solving.
Twenty students from Catholic schools in South Australia have been named among the winners in two major state-wide Humanities competitions.
Earlier this year, senior school students from across South Australia were invited to enter the 2024 Premier’s Anzac Spirit School Prize and the Muriel Matters Awards.
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